


Turmoil

by Askeebe



Series: Never Let Me Go [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 10:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4476629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askeebe/pseuds/Askeebe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She stopped him with a glance that seared into his very soul.  Now he cannot rest until he finds this woman sent by the goddess, this siha.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turmoil

It had taken him three days to find her. Three days of no sleep, tracking down everything he could find about this woman, really not much more than a girl. So young, but he couldn't get her out of his mind. When he tried to rest, the memory of her standing in front of his target rose up, overwhelming him. Again, he heard Arashu's command:  _Find her. Confess. Seek absolution._

The door opened, and she was there in front of him. His goddess come to life.

For her part, she simply looked at him, judging. "I wondered if you would show up," she finally said. "Have you come to kill me then?"

A stab of pain pierced his heart at the thought, and he fell to his knees in front of her. "No! Never! Arashu sent me to find you..." his mouth was dry and words failed him.

"Arashu? You are Amonkira's avatar, are you not?" She held herself regally, looking far more mature than the twenty or so years she could rightfully claim.

He could not deny it. "I am."

"Then why are you here?"

"To confess to you. To seek your forgiveness." He couldn't look her in the eyes any longer. They were burning into his very being, searching for he knew not what.

Down the apartment hallway, another door rattled. "Come in. Quickly," she said and tugged at his coat. Wordlessly, he followed her into her bedroom where she shut the door.

"Why seek my forgiveness?" she asked. "Why not go to the temple and speak to the priests?"

Thane wondered at her self-control. He had been afraid she would scream or be frightened of him. Instead, she was possessed of a calm that he envied right now. "I did," he said. "Not the priests. Arashu herself spoke to me. She told me to find you. I have been looking every minute since then."

"It's not my forgiveness you should be seeking, but that man's. What were you doing?"

Thane furrowed his eye ridges in confusion. Was it not obvious? "I was going to kill him."

"Why?" she demanded.

He shrugged. "It was my assignment. Why else?"

She looked angry now. "But why?"

Thane shook his head. "If you are asking why someone purchased a contract for his death, I do not know. Nor is it my place to ask. I was given a task, and shamefully I failed to complete it."

"It's not shameful to save a life!" she yelled.

"I have never failed a contract until now!" he yelled back, then took a step backward and apologized with a bow. He shouldn't yell at her. She personified the goddess of motherhood and protection. Not that he was particularly religious. The only faith he needed was in his body's abilities and his weapon's aim. His trainers had carefully discouraged any religious leanings, since it might cause problems if the operatives started questioning their orders.

"You're from the Compact, aren't you?" she accused with a glare.

He nodded with an unconcerned shrug. There was no point in denying it. They weren't many, and those who made up the assassins' ranks were even fewer, but all drell knew about them, even if the details of the Compact were wrapped in shadows.

"I'll ask you again. Why are you here?" Her tone was irritated.

"I told you. Arashu told me to find you, to ask forgiveness."

"I can't give it to you."

"You must. You are her siha," he said desperately, alarmed at the note of pleading he heard in his voice.

"And if I give you my forgiveness, what then?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

Thane blinked rapidly. He had been so focused on simply finding her, on working up the courage to speak to her, that he had no plans past this point.

"No words? Will you just go back to the Compact? Back to those who send you to kill?"

What was he supposed to say? He knew no other life. "It's what I owe them," he said helplessly. "I am in their service."

"You could leave," she challenged.

He turned away, unable to bear the thought. "I cannot. This is my life. It's my duty. It's...it's all I know. And I'm good at it," he added harshly.

"Good at killing? Is that something to be proud of?" He flinched in anticipation of scorn in her voice, but instead she almost sounded curious.

He covered the distance between them in two long strides and knelt at her feet again. "Yes," he said earnestly. "I do my job well. I am a weapon, finely honed to deliver only the death that was ordered, nothing more. I do not torture. I do not let them linger. I do not kill innocents just to reach my target." Greatly daring, he reached out for her hand, and she let him take it. "I did not kill you when you stepped in front of my shot, but you could not have known that. You showed such bravery. 'How dare you,' I saw through my scope. You stood there, and I could not take the shot. You stopped me with nothing more than your eyes." He looked up at her, seeing again the flash of orange deep in her eyes, along with something else, the snapping of a vibrant spirit that filled her. "Please," he begged as he pressed her hand to his feverish forehead. "I need...I need..."

She pulled her hand away and walked to the window. Thane clenched his hands into fists and waited. Outside, the rain poured down. "I don't know if I can give you what you need," she said to his reflection in the window. His shoulders slumped as he sat back on his heels.

Reluctantly, he pushed back to his feet.. A sheaf of paper sketches caught his attention, and looking for any reason to stay, he walked over to look at them. His breath caught in his chest as he saw the one on top. It was a sketch of the low skyline inside the environment dome, done from a ground perspective. A line connected the viewer with a building rooftop. It was where he had been perched to take the shot that this woman had interrupted. A four-rayed star marked the spot he had lain. The crescent moon hung overhead with horns pointing up. A feeling of cold dread swept over him at the ominous symbol.

Arashu was the goddess of motherhood and protection, and her most common symbol was an upturned crescent cradling a pearl or gemstone, representing her protection of that most precious. To see something so obviously outside of her protection was a symbol of bad luck, of being cast out on one's own to face the elements unprotected. Thane wasn't religious, but every drell raised on Kahje knew this.

He held it up to her. "Why did you draw this?" he demanded.

"It's what I saw," she retorted.

"This?" he asked again, gesturing toward the crescent hanging over his position.

She nodded defiantly. "You're lost," she told him. "But I wasn't sure if you were lost forever or not."

He threw the paper back on the desk. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Finally she turned away from the window and walked over to put her hand on his chest. The warmth bled through the light shirt and jacket he wore. "Do you still have your soul? Or have you given it over entirely to the hanar?"

Her touch disturbed him. This gentle touch was foreign in the extreme. He wanted to walk away, but he also wanted to cover her hand with his. Caught in his internal struggle, he did neither. "What am I supposed to do?" he asked her. "My parents gave me to the Compact. I serve with honor. It's a good life."

"It's no life!" she disagreed and pushed harder on his chest. He kept his feet firmly planted, feeling a strange stirring inside him. "You should be free to choose your path. You shouldn't be forced to kill."

He knew his confusion must be showing on his face. She was asking questions he'd never asked himself in his whole life. "Then what would I do?"

"Anything you want," she answered softly.

He shook his head. "But I've never known anything else." He couldn't help himself. His hand came up to cover hers.

"That's no excuse," she chided. "You shouldn't be afraid to try something new, to go after what you want."

Her words fell with icy clarity into his being. His entire life had been carefully scripted with his trainers and handlers teaching him and showing him only what they wanted him to know. He was a weapon, and he had never resented that fact, but now he was aching for something that he couldn't even describe. "You should be careful," he warned her with the brashness of youth.

"Why?"

"Because right now, I want to kiss you."

She raised one eyebrow ridge. "Then why don't you?"

"You might object."

"You could ask."

He frowned. He was unused to asking. He received orders, and he carried them out. Asking was usually reserved for finding intel. Very well, he would ask. "May I kiss you?"

She smiled. "Since you asked so prettily, yes."

He leaned in. She was shorter than he was. When his lips touched hers, he was floored by the sensation. She was sweet and welcoming. He felt an unexpected warmth flowing through him, a magnetism that drew him closer. His few encounters in the past were as nothing compared to this!

All his training flew out the window, and all he wanted was the warm, angelic woman in his arms. His arms came up to circle her. She was sublime. She was heaven. She was sweet life itself. His mind was in a whirl. When she stepped backward, his arms tightened at first, not wanting to let this heavenly creature leave his side, but then his rationality engaged again. She was only a woman, he told himself, no different from any other woman out there. Except that the regal way she held herself and the knowing glint in her eye said otherwise. No, she was unique, and he was lost in her, just as he had been since she threw herself in front of his targeting laser.

"Do you still want forgiveness?" she asked.

"What?" He had been staring transfixed at her perfect lips.

She laughed, amused at his distraction. "Do you still think me worthy of granting you forgiveness? You kissed me. You know I'm just a woman."

"No, you're not," he denied quickly. "You are Arashu's siha, and only you can grant me forgiveness"

"I thought you said you were a weapon, so how can a weapon feel the need for forgiveness?"

He shook his head, feeling lost. "I do not know. I have never felt this way before. I only know that when your eyes met mine through the scope that everything changed. I had to find you."

She turned to her desk and pulled out a small prayer book. "Have you read this?" He shook his head. She placed it in his hand. "Come back when you've finished it."

He was between assignments, so his time was mostly his own, as long as he kept up with the required training. It took him two days to read through the small book, but when he went back to her, he discovered that she wanted more than just a recitation of the words. She pushed him, kept asking questions that he couldn't answer, and sending him away until he could. Each night, she let him kiss her, and the memories of those kisses both fulfilled him and left him aching for more when he was away from her.

An assignment came. It took him off world for a month. It should have been easy, but instead, he found his thoughts wandering to his vibrant siha who challenged him constantly. He should have been studying schematics, but his thoughts turned to the last question she'd left him with: What is love? One might as well ask what is life, he groused to himself as he forced his attention back to the job at hand. In the end, the target died with no collateral damage. A successful mission.

"Where were you?" she asked three days later, angry for some reason.

"I had an assignment," he answered, puzzled about why she was angry. "Why else would I leave?"

"You left without telling me!"

"Why would I tell you?" he asked, even more confused. She wasn't in the Compact, she wasn't one of his handlers. Why would she care where he went or what he did?

"Because I was worried about you, you idiot!"

"You...were worried? Why?"

For once, it was a question that she couldn't answer. Instead, she kissed him. This time, she took his jacket off, then his shirt. He hesitated and she cupped his head in her hands. "Do you know what love is?"

"I'm no virgin," he snapped, but she wouldn't let him go.

"I'm not talking about sex. I'm talking about love. Sex is about our bodies. Love is when our souls connect." She took his hand and placed in on her chest, then placed her own on his chest. "Have you ever loved someone?"

He traced the pattern on her scales. "You, siha," he whispered. "Only you."

She led him to her bed, and like everything else with her, she was beyond compare. He felt like he could understand the universe while in her arms. The soul of the world opened to his eyes, and it was all because of this siha. Afterward, they lay in each other's arms, touching and nuzzling. Thane felt a sense of peace that was completely new to him.

His omni tool buzzed from where he had tossed it carelessly on the ground with the rest of his clothing. Immediately, he climbed out of bed to check the message, then began dressing.

She propped herself up on an elbow. "What are you doing?" If he had to hazard a guess, he'd say she was angry again.

"I have an assignment."

"What? Now? You just got back."

He shrugged as he fastened his pants and pulled on his shirt. "I have an assignment," he said again, not knowing how else to explain it. It was what he did. It was who he was.

"Don't go," she challenged him.

He stopped and stared at her. Those words made no sense to him. "I have to."

"Why?"

"It's...I...It's my duty. It's my honor."

"What of me?"

"I will return to you as soon as possible," he promised.

"Will I see you before you leave?"

"No," he shook his head. "They wouldn't allow it. Not before a mission."

"Come back to me, assassin. I haven't forgiven you yet."

Leaving his jacket on the floor, he knelt at the side of her bed and took her hand in his. "Will you ever?"

"Will you change?"

He laid his head on the bed, a penitent sinner. "I don't see how," he admitted.

"You have already," she told him. "I see it. Here, take this with you." She reached over to her desk and pulled out a necklace. It was Arashu's symbol, a silver crescent holding a pearl. She pressed it into his palm and folded his fingers over it. "I don't think you're lost anymore, assassin. I will pray for your safe return."

He cradled her token against his chest, then leaned in and kissed her. "I will think of you." Then he was gone, taking that tiny bit of her with him. Little did he know, he had left a tiny bit of himself with her.


End file.
